Rose Garden Cafe: Sheffield Council and community groups making progress on plan to save Graves Park building

A meeting of Sheffield City Council’s charity trustee sub-committee (January 22) heard an update on the progress being made by the council’s partnership with the Friends of Graves Park and the Save the Rose Garden Cafe campaign.

The group is currently meeting fortnightly to look at issues such as sources of funding for work to take place to restore the cafe and the potential cost of the structural repairs needed on the 97-year-old building.

The partnership came together following 15 months of campaigning to save the building, which was found to have structural issues and closed suddenly by the council in July 2022. The news was greeted by a public outcry which successfully stopped any plans to demolish the building or replace it with a more modern version.

The cafe has since only partly reopened, mainly as a takeaway, as extensive structural supports are in place that take up much of the interior space.

Project officer Rebecca Nixon said that council officers had recognised that there needed to be a reconciliation between groups of people with different opinions in setting up the partnership. She added: “Co-creation is quite a big step for us to get to.”

The partnership has advertised for any other interested groups to join the group, as well as for an independent chair. Ms Nixon said that nobody had come forward to join the partnership.

She said that three people had made inquiries about taking on the role of chair but only one application has been received. The deadline for applications was extended to January 19.

Ms Nixon stressed that work on the project is continuing and has not been halted while a chair is found for the partnership.

Key priorities include finding and applying for external funding for the work, deciding the reason for the lean in the front wall, determining how much it will cost to restore the building and appointing someone with expertise in heritage building management to lead the rebuilding work. There will also be public consultation taking place so that cafe users can say what facilities they would like to see.

Coun Zahira Naz asked for direct feedback from the group as to how they think things are moving on. Coun Fran Belbin suggested inviting partnership members to speak at future meetings.

Coun Richard Williams, who chairs the parks committee, said that he was encouraged by the progress made.

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Committee chair Coun Ian Auckland, who is a Graves Park ward councillor, said that he too was encouraged. He added: “I suppose the $64,000 question is how close are we to getting some money coming in and getting the work done?”

Chair of the Friends group Caroline Dewar, who was at the meeting to ask questions about Norton Nurseries, told the committee: “The partnership is working as a partnership. The partnership is aware of everything that is going to be said at this meeting and we are broadly agreed as we said.

“The Friends of Graves Park is very, very cautiously optimistic that we might be getting somewhere.”

The sub-committee will get another update on progress with the project at its March meeting.

The sub-committee acts as trustee for all the city sites that are owned by charitable trusts given to the people of Sheffield.